A good guy and his rat blow their cover

The five people in Congressman Antonio Falco’s dining room stared up at the security monitors, surveying the carnage in the front yard.

Falco looked at his bewildered wife. “You can put the shotgun down, Evelyn. Whatever was going to happen already has. It’s over. Every video camera and every motion detector in the house goes directly to the security boys. I’m a little surprised the place isn’t swarming with cops right now.”

“They’re here,” Ernesto said quietly. “They’re just waiting on my signal to close.”

“I kind of thought it might be you,” Falco said and sat down heavily on one of the ornate dining chairs.

“Would someone please explain to me what’s going on?” Charlie asked.

“Unless I miss my guess, your buddy Ernesto is DEA,” Falco said.

“You’re a fed?” Genie asked, pouty mouth agape. “But you helped me steal the flash drive. You’re a criminal, just like . . . like . . . Charlie.”

Ernesto moved closer to the congressman, took the shotgun from Evelyn’s hands and looked at Charlie. “If you’d like to live another day, you’d better put that pistol where I can see it. Sorry to disappoint you, Genie, but the flash drive was just what we call the MacGuffin. We’ve had a copy for weeks. We figured that Charlie might try to use it to buy his way out from Palmieri.” He turned to Charlie. “Which of course you did. But we had bigger fish to fry, didn’t we, congressman?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Charlie croaked, dry-lipped.

“If you think I’m a bad congressman, you ought to see me as a blackmailer,” Falco said. “Remember the first scam we tried, when we got that big donor on video with the cheerleaders? The feds got me while I was still in my office holding the envelope. They turned me, Charlie. And to be honest, for once, I’m glad they did, especially after I found out about Palmieri. You think he’s a blackmailer. Know what our government calls him?”

“The Finger of the Beast,” Ernesto said. “He’s one of the lieutenants of the Marenco cocaine cartel. He’s been moving millions of dollars worth of dope in and out of his marina in Baja. And he’s just the finger. Eventually he’s going to lead us to the fist, and eventually, if we’re lucky, to the heart. And now you’re going to help, too.”

“Oh man,” Charlie sighed, putting his face in his hands. “Ernesto, you and I go way back. We’re in this together. You even brought me some of . . . Oh, I get it. I’ve been the set up all along, huh? Well, I’m as willing to be a good American as the next guy, I guess. But are you sure about our congressman? I came over here because I found out he’s been spilling his guts to that bimbette Carmen over at Jumbo’s.”

“Say what?” Ernesto said, shooting Falco a hard look.

Falco started to sweat.

“It’s not what you think. I didn’t really tell her anything important. But I needed a little insurance. I figured half the world, including everybody in this room, didn’t care if I lived or died. So I gave her a package. And if anything happens to either one of us, we’ve fixed it so that the package goes straight to The Times.”

“What have you done?” muttered Ernesto.

Jack Shakely is the retired president of the California Community Foundation and an aspiring historical novelist.